José María Caro Rodríguez

José María Cardinal Caro Rodríguez ( born June 23, 1866 in San Antonio de Petrel, Pichilemu, Región del Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins, † December 4, 1958 in Santiago de Chile) was Archbishop of Santiago de Chile.

Life

Youth and Early Years of Priesthood

José María Caro Rodríguez was the fourth of nine children of José María Caro Rodríguez Martínez, the local mayor, and his wife. He attended school in Ciruelos to which he had to walk five kilometers every day. At the same time acquired Ramón Jiménez Saavedra, a canon of the cathedral chapter of Santiago, a farm nearby, where he celebrated Mass daily in the summer months. The young José María mini trated him.

Soon, struck him to the canons before the priestly career. In March this year, he traveled with his father to Santiago to take the entrance examination of the seminar. In 1887 he began studying theology and the Greek language and got language teaching in the seminary. The newly appointed Archbishop of Santiago, Mariano Casanova y Casanova, sent him with some other students to Rome to continue his studies at the Pontifical Latin American Group " Pius " and at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Despite a serious lung disease, he was ordained priest on December 30, 1890. He earned his doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. In 1891 he returned to Chile, when the country was torn by civil war. He taught philosophy at the seminary in Santiago and worked as Seelsorgen in several hospitals and parishes, including as pastor in Mamiña March to December 1899. In 1900 he returned as a professor of theology in the seminary.

Bishop

Pope Pius X appointed him on May 6, 1911 Vicar Apostolic of Tarapacá and on January 5, 1912 Titular Bishop of Mylasa. The Apostolic Internuncio in Chile, Enrico Sibilia, donated to him on 28 April of the same year in the cathedral of Santiago de Chile episcopal ordination. As a motto he chose Deus refugium nostrum et virtus (God is our refuge and strength - Psalm 46.1 ).

Pope Pius XI. appointed him on 14 December 1925 Bishop of La Serena. There he wrote most of his books. With the elevation of La Serena to the archbishopric of José María Caro on May 20, 1939 his first archbishop was.

On October 14, 1939, he was appointed Archbishop of Santiago. As such, he was the driving force behind the building of the Votive Church Templo Votivo de Maipú ( Basilica of Our Lady of Mount Carmel ) in gratitude for the victory over the Spanish army in the Revolutionary War.

On the day of his appointment as Archbishop he visited the President Pedro Aguirre Cerda, a member of the anticlerical and Masonic embossed Radical Party, an official visit. He was able to normalize relations with the anticlerical and liberal government that ruled Chile in those years. He promoted the charitable work of Hogar de Cristo of the Jesuit Alberto Hurtado (1901-1952, canonized 2005 ). When he died, he prayed the Angelus Domini.

Cardinal

On December 23, 1945, announced that the Pope will appoint Archbishop Caro Rodríguez in the consistory in February next year for the Cardinal. Pius XII. took it as the first Chileans as cardinal priest per hac vice with the titular church of Santa Maria della Scala in the College of Cardinals to.

He participated in the conclave of 1958. On 4 December the same year he received, diagnosed with pneumonia, the anointing of the sick. José María Caro Rodríguez died next day at 13.20 clock in Barcelona at the age of 92 years. His remains rest in a chapel in the right aisle of the Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago. By April 2006, his remains were in the new Archbishop's Crypt of the Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago.

Cardinal Caro Rodriguez was awarded numerous medals from foreign governments.

His beatification process was initiated in 1968.

Writings

• Fundamentos de la Fe
• Porque Creo
• El Matrimonio Cristiano
• El Misterio de la masoneria ( against the Freemasons )
• La Iglesia y los Obreros